The electrical systems of typical railroad locomotives have a substantial number of common subsystems and circuits, which are based on the same or similar theories of operation. A thorough knowledge of these subsystems and circuits is crucial to the proper maintenance and operation of locomotives. Therefore, if a locomotive maintenance student or locomotive electrician can grasp the concept of how each subsystem or circuit works, that student or electrician need not be trained on every make and model of locomotive, yet still be able qualified to address a wide range of maintenance and operational problems encountered during railroad operations.
The typical locomotive electrical system training curricula generally consists of both instructor-led training and hands-on training. The hands-on portion of the training is normally accomplished through locomotive electrical systems simulators, which are typically constructed from actual locomotive electrical cabinets with programmable logic controllers simulating the signals found in an actual locomotive.
Current locomotive electrical systems simulators are subject to some significant disadvantages. Among other things, these simulators lack generators and motors, which are the main components that allow diesel-electric locomotives to move. Consequently, students are not provided with first hand experience with regards to important locomotive electrical operations such as generator field excitation, electrical loading on the main generator by the traction motors under varying conditions, and dynamic braking. Furthermore, the number of simulators available to a typical class is normally limited. Such the hands-on time available to each student is consequently limited.
In addition, in conventional simulator systems, the ability of the instructor to emulate faults typically found during the operation of actual locomotive electrical systems is also limited. While each instructor can place faults within a given electrical subsystem or circuitry in the simulator, the ability to consistently emulate actual locomotive electrical system faults suffers, a consequently the training of the students, as well.